Historic Mo. theater still surviving today

JOPLIN, Mo. -- Hidden in the middle of downtown Joplin is one of the most opulent movie theaters of its day.

When the Fox Theatre opened at 415 S. Main St. in 1930, a night at the movies was more than just entertainment.

"People dressed up to go to the movies," said Brad Belk, director of the Joplin Museum Complex. "The movies allowed people in Joplin to feel like they were part of the larger community in the U.S."

Before the popular black-and-white movies started for the evening, the previews were newsreels on local outlaws Bonnie and Clyde and updates on World War II.

It was information, good and bad, Belk said, before the motion pictures offered audiences the chance to forget their troubles of an economic depression and then a war.

Gary Shaw, executive director of Central Christian Center, stands in the sanctuary in Joplin, Mo. The church bought the Fox Theatre to serve its growing congregation and is restoring the old theater. (T. ROB BROWN ~ The Joplin Globe)

"It was a release," he said. "Everybody could go in there and park their troubles at the door."

Several other movie theaters from that era still exist throughout the area today. Ongoing renovation projects at some of those have been undertaken to restore them to their former glory.

But in the 1930s, there was no place bigger or better in Joplin to go see a movie than the Fox Theatre.

It took 300 men working simultaneously and $500,000 to build the Fox in seven months, said Joplin Mayor Gary Shaw.

At one time, the theater had 35 employees and a full orchestra. It even boasted the largest neon sign in Missouri for a short time.

"It was the premier movie theater in Joplin," Belk said. "It was so lavish."

Some of its most prominent design elements include blind arcades, corkscrew columns, classical orders and recessed alcoves furnished with statues. It had seating for nearly 2,000 people.

The theater shut down in the early 1970s because of increased competition from modern theaters and rising operating costs, according to the building's 1991 application to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1974, Central Assembly Church in Joplin bought the building because its congregation was growing too quickly to build a new structure. Shaw, executive administrator of what is now called Central Christian Center, said church leaders decided early on to restore the old theater instead of gutting it.

"I remember hearing someone say that these buildings like the old Fox are national treasures and that they actually belong to the community and that the owners are just caretakers," Shaw said. "That's always stuck with me and we've tried to do that."

Central Christian uses the theater for its church services and has maintained nearly every bit of the original theater including the chairs, carpet, ticket booth and tapestries. Even the ancient air-conditioning units still cool the theater-turned-sanctuary.

The church still shows old movies in the theater occasionally and it has also served as the stage for graduations, weddings and some cultural events.

Just across the Kansas border, another historic Fox Theatre is getting a facelift.

The Fox in Pittsburg was built in 1920 "along the same lines as the Isis in Kansas City," according to old newspaper stories. It is an exaggerated two-story building in an Italian

Renaissance Revival style. It underwent a massive interior renovation in 1926.

Despite being closed for more than 20 years starting in 1985, today the theater looks very much like it did when that 1926 renovation was finished. The Colonial Fox Theatre Foundation saved the Fox from demolition and bought the property in 2007.

The building was added the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. It is being renovated.

Of the theaters that survived, few still regularly show movies. But at the Plaza Theatre in Lamar, people can still see a first-run matinee for $5 a person.

The theater was built in the 1930s in the art-deco style of the day. It served as a movie theater in Lamar until the 1980s when it shut down, but a group of residents took on the project of restoring the old theater in 1995. Five years and $500,000 later, it reopened.

Lynn Calton, Lamar city administrator, said the theater has its original 800 seats and the original draperies and murals.

The Plaza now serves as the only movie theater house in Lamar, and Calton said it was worth saving if only for the memories.

"They had these movies back then called serials cowboy movies and you'd watch an episode on a Saturday and watch the hero get blown up and then come back the next Saturday and find out that he narrowly escaped," Calton said remembering his times at The Plaza. "It cost a dime to get in and it was a nickel to buy pop."

The Midland in Coffeyville is still under renovation, but Kenneth Burchinal, executive director of Midland Theatre Foundation, said when it's done, the historic theater will be worth the wait.

The Midland opened in 1928 and was a major area attraction. It offered the latest movie technology of its time including amplified orthophonic music, a silver sheet screen, a pipe organ, electric lighting and modern heating, cooling and ventilation systems.

Some of the architectural details include crimson and gold draped fabrics, Spanish-motif tapestries, crystal chandeliers and an ornamental drinking fountain.

The city of Coffeyville bought the historic theater in 2001 and turned it over to Burchinal's foundation to restore it. Burchinal said the group just finished gutting the inside of the building, and hopes to have the stained-glass windows repaired by this fall.

"We hope this will become a mainstay of downtown Coffeyville again," he said of the Midland.